February 23, 2007

Fake Drugs a Growing Threat

A new study by Oxford University has identified an "epidemic of counterfeits" posing as real medicines.

• Fake malaria drugs, antibiotics, tuberculosis and AIDS medicines and meningitis vaccines have proliferated, the New York Times has reported.
   
• With a growing supply of bogus medicines around the world, the health and safety risks to American patients who buy medicine abroad or over the Internet only increase.

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals have proliferated. They're not only more numerous, but look more authentic.

• A dozen different kinds of fake malaria pills have appeared in Southeast Asia.
   
• Counterfeit medicines cause as many as 200,000 deaths a year.
   
• More than half the malaria medicines bought in the Oxford University investigation were bogus.
   
• Every single one of the 100,000 tablets obtained in Myanmar were fake.
   
• More and more, counterfeit medicines appear authentic – the pills, packaging, security features.

China produces most of the world's supply of fake drugs.

• Escalating counterfeit medicines from China now proceed along long-standing heroin networks. The fakes move from China to Thai distributors.  Hong Kong supplies the financing and launders the money.
   
• Trafficking in fake drugs carries weaker penalties than running heroin.  So it’s an attractive avenue.
   
• China has had "repeated scandals in which medicines and infant formula" it approved "killed dozens of Chinese, including children."  Top Chinese officials have been arrested for taking bribes in exchange for drug approvals.

Some in Congress would risk America's drug supply by easing the ability to import or reimport drugs from foreign countries. But the contents of such uncontrolled products can cause serious problems.

• Some of the pills Oxford obtained contained fever reducers, outmoded antimalarial drugs, worthless ingredients like flour, chalk and starch, or sulfa – one could cause a fatal rash in allergic patients.
   
• Some of the pills had a small amount of the real medicine. This might help a fake package to get past any screenings. But it also could enable the development of drug-resistant strains of malaria. That means more deaths and renders the latest medicines useless.

Counterfeit medicines often enter the United States through Internet "pharmacies."  The products they sell Americans can come from anywhere, including China. Importation of cheap foreign-sourced medicine carries consequences for patient safety and health.  With the steady rise in fake
medicines and Internet pharmacies – and better knockoffs that can fool even experts' eyes – , Americans face growing risks from liberalized reimportation policies.